Students to Investigate Causes For Achievement Gaps

By Lynn Olson

Researchers have proposed numerous causes for the achievement gaps between minority and nonminority students and those from rich and poor families. Now, students will have a chance to seek and provide their own views.

In the first phase of an unusual project, researchers at the City University of New York have trained 32 youth researchers, between the ages of 14 and 21, to conduct a detailed study of how their peers view the achievement gap, its causes, its consequences, and potential remedies.

The youth researchers last week sent a survey they've designed to more than 7,000 students in nearly a dozen districts in New York City, New Jersey, and the close-in suburbs of the...